Declawing/keeping kitties inside/outside

Let's get our debate on. c: Maybe.
How do people here feel about declawing?
For anyone that doesn't know, delcawing involves amputation of part of a cats toes to remove the claw. Since claws are attached to the bone and just cutting them would involve them regrowing, the whole joint is removed.
It is illegal in a lot of countries outside of medical reasons. c:

How do you feel about it? Is it even legal in your country? o:

And why not. Let's go for some other kitty stuff too.
How do you feel about letting cats outdoors? In the US cats kill 1-3 billion birds and 7-20 billion mammals each year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21236690
On top of that, letting your murder machine outside means putting it at risk of all sorts of nastiness like poison, fights (potentially leading to abcesses or FIV or FeLV or something), being lost or stolen or getting hit by a car. :c Lonin could never live with herself if Jack got squished by a car and just lay on the side of the road dying alone because 'kitties are meant to be outside'.

Do/would you let your kitties outside? Can you name another commonly kept pet that is allowed and almost expected to be wandering through other people's property without fences, cages or leads? Fo srs, Lonin can't think of any. XD

Well I'm going to get a kitten soon (like next month) so I can't really answer your question yet since I have no experience whatsoever.

They always say that cats live longer when they stay indoors, right? I don't think a cat would be severely affected by never feeling grass on their feet and stuff like that. They like the company of their owners and food and basic stuff. So most likely I won't let it go outside unless I'm like carrying him/her and bringing him/her to a park or something (like that's ever going to happen haha).

Not sure about the declawing thing. Is it dangerous to the cat's health? Will it cause complications when the claws have been removed? /too lazy to research XD

You're getting a kitten!??! OOO:
Well, indoor/outdoor can live about the same as indoor only, assuming they don't get hit by a car, or killed by an animal or lost or stolen or poisoned or anything. It's definitely more dangerous for them to be outside. Not including all the animals they could kill. Kitties only bring home about 25% of their kills. c:

Declawing is really cruel. Any operation is dangerous and comes with risks. And cats are good at hiding pain. Since they're missing whole joints they'll have to learn to walk differently that can be painful and such, as well as hindering their ability to climb and grip. Without being able to mark through scratching, some cats may start to spray instead.
It can lead to arthritis in later life since they need to start putting their weight on their back legs. They may stop using the litter tray, again because of the pain and since their first line of defense is gone they can start to bite. And cat bites are far worse than scratches. It means they're nearly completley defenseless if they ever managed to get outside and would probably be killed by other animals.
It's also unnecessarily removing part of your animal because you just don't want to train it not to scratch your furniture or look into other options, and since many people get their cats declawed when they're quite young, they might not have even scratched furniture or people in the first place. Getting cats declawed as a preventative measure is disgusting. Lonin's house has leather chairs, not been scratched once. She peels the wallpaper off, though. XD But lots of people have problems with deteething a cat.
It's hard to find unbias sites about stuff like declawing but http://www.declawing.com/the-truth-about-declawing isn't too bad.

I wouldn't declaw mine. I'd still like mine to be able to climb- because that's one of the beautiful abilities of a cat
Although I'd have to clip the claws, but hey- I want the kitty to experience life to its maximum!

Nonono to outside without supervision. I don't want it to get run over or get infections o-o

I'd let it out in the garden once in a while with supervision so it can still have some exploration 8D

c: If you do it from when they're young you can easily train them to wear a harness and lead and take them outside as much as they like. We used to do it with Jack but she just kept getting fleas. >: Like the instant she was outside a billion fleas jumped on her. So we don't do that anymore. XD She wasn't too bothered.
You can also build enclosures for yay safe fun! If you're awesome you could put a catflap in a wall/door and have the enclosure on the other side so they can go out whenever they like.

Popping in here!

Well, to start I am 100% against declawing. Cats don't have so many natural defenses as dogs do, and one of their few defenses are their claws. They need their back claws (at least) to climb trees, and need their forepaw claws to swipe at things and do any damage. In my opinion if you can't bother to teach your kitty not to claw the furniture then you shouldn't have a cat. My cats are not declawed and we have no problem with our furniture or being scratched- if we do get scratched it's because we were doing something stupid to anger our cats.

In regards to indoor/outdoor...well both of my cats go both indoors and out doors. Sirus, my 9 year old male, spent most of the first year of his life as a stray hunting for food. After we took him in he still preferred being outside to anything else. Now he still prefers being outside. We keep him up to date on all of his vaccinations, and he always has a flee collar on in the warmer months. He keeps the strays off our property and doesn't bother our ducks or chickens at all. I would never want to make him less happy by keeping him inside when it wouldn't do any good at all. Shadow, my 10 year old female, prefers being inside to out. However, we still kick her out in the summer because she yowls and because it keeps her weight down. If we let her inside all summer long then she would likely be very obese...besides, it's good for her to get out and do what kitties do naturally...sometimes she brings us mice or birds as gifts (and doesn't eat them like Sirus) but she's not much of a hunter.

Personally, I don't declaw my own cats so that if they escaped then they could defend themselves and hunt. If you want to declaw a cat, then you're making it so that if they do get out then there's a much lesser change of them coming back to you safely, or even alive. ;A;

Jus' throwin' in my own two cents.

Perocore wrote:
In regards to indoor/outdoor...well both of my cats go both indoors and out doors. Sirus, my 9 year old male, spent most of the first year of his life as a stray hunting for food. After we took him in he still preferred being outside to anything else. Now he still prefers being outside. We keep him up to date on all of his vaccinations, and he always has a flee collar on in the warmer months. He keeps the strays off our property and doesn't bother our ducks or chickens at all. I would never want to make him less happy by keeping him inside when it wouldn't do any good at all. Shadow, my 10 year old female, prefers being inside to out. However, we still kick her out in the summer because she yowls and because it keeps her weight down. If we let her inside all summer long then she would likely be very obese...besides, it's good for her to get out and do what kitties do naturally...sometimes she brings us mice or birds as gifts (and doesn't eat them like Sirus) but she's not much of a hunter.

Flea collars aren't the best for cats. They can irritate their neck and cause fur loss and other problems, and if it's not a breakaway or elastic collar he could hang himself on a branch or something. Which could happen anyway if he's unlucky. It's best to use the spot-on treatments or something. c: But not yucky cheap ones.
As for exercise and obesity, that's what playing and controlling food is for. Kitties can display their natural hunting behaviour whether it's a mouse, a feather on a stick or a cardboard box or a funny shaped shadow on a wall or a weird sound. Jack doesn't seem to care what she hunts. XD Oh in summer lots of flies end up getting in the house. She had so much fun last year eating them all and faceplanting the ceiling. XD You only really need to have a dedicated play time for 30 minutes a day, which can be split into smaller sessions. Provide a few toys and interesting things for kitty to play with on her own (ie, a box with holes in), maybe supply part of a meal in a treat ball or something (since cats shouldn't be given dry food ideally) and yay.
If she's bringing you a few dead things, she's definitely a hunter. Kitties bring back less than 25% of what they actually kill.
When it's for a purpose like Sirus, or a stray turned pet and you're (general) fine with the possibility of kitty being killed or seriously injured then that's alright. When it's just because kitties should be outside unsupervised and unchained when no other pet is expected to be and you're capable of giving kitty the correct care indoors fulltime it's a bit dodgy. You (general, hopefully) wouldn't let Mr Snake or ferret or rat outside unsupervised to do what snakes or ferrets or rats do naturally. But it's considered alright with cats. It's just weird. XD Maybe it's just Lonin worrying too much. If we let Jack outside we'd just sit at the window waiting for her to come back and expecting her to die or something. D:

Haha, well, Lonster, I just don't question how we care for our cats (except for when my dad's a jerk and chases them >_<). They're 9 and 10 years old and have done pretty well. We do use the spot treatments (which they hate), but we also like the flea collars (which we've had not problems with) because it both helps prevents parasites and also lets people know that they're owned. We make sure the collars are loose enough for them to slip out of. Of course Sirus has a habit of getting all of his collars off anyways XD

Well, Sirus would go insane and puke all over if we kept him locked up indoors...he loves the outside world ;u; And I would never chain a cat up XD We don't even chain our dogs up- they have a fenced in yard. And we wouldn't be able to supervise Sirus, he runs off into the woods. I just think that if he's been out side for 9 years, almost 10, then he should be okay for the remainder of his life So he gets into fights every now and then, and when he loses he doesn't feel good. We just keep him inside then and keep an eye on him. He perks up and wants right back out the next day!

I guess we all just have different ways of taking care of our animals. I know the people down the road have all 5 of theirs cats declawed and keep them inside, but they love those cats so much. They never had kids so the cats are their babies, and that's how they treat them. We just all have different ways

c: Indeedy if it works for you and your kitties that's awesome

This is going to be pretty useful when I'm gonna get a kitten. @_@ Well I'm not very sure, but my dad promised so I think we're getting one after we come home from America (yes I will show pictures. May likely be a Russian Blue).

I never even considered the idea of declawing, and now I know more about it (woot). The problem is that we have a lot of wood furniture haha. I have to figure out how to train it and hopefully it'll be pretty easy to train.

<3 Russian Blue's are awesome.
Get it a decent scratching post or cat tree (sturdy and high enough that it can stretch all the way out fully grown) and a scratch mat and show it how to use them from when it's young and you shouldn't have much of a problem. c: Cats can be trained just like dogs. Russian Blues very intelligent kitties so as long as you keep it occupied it could keep all its claws.

Well, if I remember correctly, when we first got Shadow (and she's very intelligent though she pretends to be stupid around my dad) my mom would spray her with a spray bottle when she scratched the furniture, and then would scoop her up, take her to the scratching post, set her down, and take her paws and drag them over the post (very very gently) and now Shadow only scratches on her post. It's a pretty decent post too, Sirus just uses a scrap piece of wood out side, but Shadow loves her post

Russian Blues are awesome cats, I love that slate blue color <3 <3

If you let your cats outside you should expect too see alot less mice, and other vermins around where you live. Our cats keep mice down really well, we don't have much trouble with them outside, we had some mice in our pantry so we had to clean it out and fill up the mice holes. We don't declaw our cats, they are great mousers, i am against declawing cats. Hope thjis helped, sorry it's a little.... Short?

I think declawing is kind of abusive personally :/

As for whether they're let outside or not, that depends on where you live. If, like me, you live in the middle of nowhere, then it's fine to let them out, because they're not stupid.

c: It's not just for the cat's sake that they should be inside.
Cats kill billions of animals each year and are a cause of some species becoming increasingly rare, endangered or extinct.

Yeah, good point, but where I live is overrun with rabbits anyway. I don't think the ecology could get too much worse.

Well, out where I live we don't really have any endangered critters...snow geese and some salamanders, but the cats sure as heck don't bother those...just mice, voles, moles, rats, and Sirus has dragged in a mink once, a weasel once, and a bat once...the bat was the only bad one because our bat population has gone way down recently...they're starting to make a come back though.

As for Shadow she usually just curls up in the barn and stays there until morning...sometimes she'll bring back a mouse, but not usually.